(Bloomberg) — Derrick Monet and his wife, Jenna, were driving on an Indiana interstate in 2019 when their Tesla Model 3 sedan, which ran on autopilot, crashed into a parked fire engine. Derrick, then 25, suffered fractures of the spine, neck, shoulders, ribs and legs. Jenna, 23, died in the hospital.
The incident was one in a dozen in the last four years in which Tesla using this driver assistance system collided with first-aid vehicles, raising doubts about the safety of the technology that the world's most valuable automotive company considers one of its crown jewels.
Now, regulators in the United States apply a greater level of scrutiny to autopilot. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which has the authority to force recalls, opened two formal defect investigations that could ultimately lead Tesla Inc. to have to adapt cars and restrict the use of autopilot in situations where it is not yet safe.
A crackdown on autopilot could tarnish Tesla's reputation among consumers and frighten investors whose belief in the company's good faith helped make Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, the richest person in the world. It could affect the confidence in technology in which other automotive and software companies are investing billions to develop in the hope of reversing a worrying trend of rising traffic fatalities in the US.
It could also intensify long-standing tensions between Washington and Tesla. The iconoclast Musk has already mocked the NHTSA as a “party pooper cop” and was irritated by President Joe Biden's unwillingness to praise the pioneering company. He's not shy to criticize lawmakers and regulators on Twitter, the social media platform he offered to buy for $43 billion.
Tesla, which publishes its results later this week, has lately had an aura of invincibility. As larger rivals were harmed by global chip shortages and other disruptions generated by the pandemic, the electric car manufacturer managed to substantially increase production. A modestly funded and slow functioning government agency is one of the few obstacles that threatens to divert its course.
Musk and Tesla did not respond to requests for comment. “Making our vehicles safer is critical to our company culture and the way we innovate with new technologies,” Rohan Patel, Tesla's senior director of public policy and business development, wrote in a March letter to congressmen.
A crackdown by the NHTSA would follow repeated requests from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the independent accident investigation agency, to strengthen oversight of automated vehicles. The NTSB, which does not have the power to force automakers to follow its recommendations, has suggested that Tesla adopt the automated driving system safety measures that General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. have adopted for its systems. Tesla has not responded to the NTSB guideline and instead continued its riskier approach.
“Basically, we have the old west on our roads right now,” said Jennifer Homendy, president of the NTSB, in an interview. She describes the deployment of Tesla functions marketed as autopilot and full self-driving as artificial intelligence experiments using untrained operators. “It's a disaster that will happen at any moment.”
Original Note:
Tesla Autopilot Stirs U.S. Alarm as 'Disaster Waiting to Happen'
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